


What's in a name?

by TeekiJane



Category: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-09
Packaged: 2018-01-15 02:04:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1287139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeekiJane/pseuds/TeekiJane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dee Pike has a conversation with one of her sons after he has a nightmare. Pre-canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's in a name?

They say that boys develop speech skills later than girls do, and I’ve found that to be true for my children, especially the triplets. I’d gone from Mallory, my firstborn, who’d been blessed from an early age with a large vocabulary, to these three boys, who seemed to have created their own language instead of learning English. Mallory spoke in proper sentences, largely understood by the general public, by the time she’d turned two. The triplets, on the other hand, barely had any recognizable language when they turned three. Even Vanessa, more than a year younger, seemed to make more sense than they did.

By the time they were three and a half, though, Adam and Jordan seemed to have almost caught up with their peers. But Byron lagged behind them. At the time, I’d been worried. Now that my kids are leaving their teen years behind, I can see what was really going on. He was letting his brothers test the waters before he joined them. That would become a trend through the years: Adam would dive into situations head first, without bothering to check the water depth or sometimes, without even knowing how to swim. Jordan would, when they were young, follow him straight in. But Byron would hold back and do one of two things: either he’d wait to make sure they surfaced okay and then follow by slowly lowering himself in, gently acclimatizing himself to the water. Or he’d swipe a toe in and then decide the water was too cold and go find something else to do. 

I hadn’t had a chance to do anything about Byron not talking. At the time, I’d had seven small children at home and been pregnant with my eighth. We’d lost the baby—a boy—right around twenty-two weeks. Grief and sorrow had overwhelmed both John and I, and it had taken all the strength and energy we had just to make sure everyone was fed and dressed and safe. By the time I’d come around enough to start wondering if maybe I needed to look into a speech therapist, Byron surprised the hell out of me. One day, he was quiet at lunch and just pointed to what he wanted; the next day, he looked at me and said, “Can I have some milk, Mommy?” 

After that, I didn’t worry any more. His vocabulary was fine and his syntax was actually better than his brothers'. Part of me thinks that maybe he just didn’t want to talk until he could do it properly. That’s also something he’s done many times through the years. He gave up on piano lessons after about five weeks because he couldn’t play anything yet, and it took him three summers to learn to ride a bike because he didn’t want to fall off of it and embarrass himself. 

A year and a half later, all was quiet in the Pike house one evening. All eight of our kids were fast asleep in bed. Or at least, that’s what I thought. John was out for the evening at a client dinner. It was one of the last ones he’d ever had—shortly thereafter, he’d switched jobs to one that paid slightly less but meant that he could be home at five every evening. 

I’d taken out some old photo albums from my childhood and was looking through the pictures. I’d gotten through to my teen years when I heard small footsteps pad across the floor and join me on the couch. I raised my eyebrows but didn’t look over to see who it was. I could tell just by the way he sat down on the other end, silently. Vanessa would have stood in the doorway and announced what she needed, and Mallory was fairly self-sufficient for a six-year-old—unless she had thrown up or something of the sort, she just went and took care of her needs, getting a drink of water or even a snack without asking. Adam would have bellowed something from the top of the stairs and Jordan would have stood right in front of me to get my attention instantly. Nicky would have come to sit in my lap, and Margo and Claire were both still in cribs, so they would have just screamed. 

I didn’t acknowledge Byron’s presence right away; instead I looked at him casually over the photo album as I turned the page. He was wearing his Ninja Turtle pajamas that night. I remembered distinctly when I’d bought all four boys matching PJs. Adam and Jordan had fought over who was going to get a pair with Leonardo on them. As happened so often when the two of them disagreed, Adam won the battle, but Jordan tried to let him think that he didn’t care. “Who likes crummy old Leonardo anyway?” he’d asked me, still sniffling, as he pointed to another pair. “Raphael is the coolest turtle.” 

I’d sighed. If I’d had my wits about me, I’d have insisted on neither of them getting Leonardo and letting Byron and Nicky have first pick. But some days, I was just in survival mode. “Which turtle do want, Nicky? Byron?” 

Byron had shaken his head, but Nicky had yelled, “Michel-anglo!” which made several people nearby laugh. I was just relieved he didn’t say Leonardo. I’d picked out a size 3T pair of Michelangelo pajamas and looked over at my other son. He seemed to be more fascinated by his shoes than by the pajamas, so I’d just grabbed the fourth turtle in a five and thrown it into the cart. 

I’d found out later that week why Byron hadn’t been enthusiastic about the PJs. The first night he wore them, he’d woken up screaming. He told John that the Shredder—the sworn enemy of the Turtles—had been after him during his dream. None of us had realized that he was even scared of the Shredder until that moment. I know it was something that Adam and Jordan teased him about behind our backs, but Byron never spoke to either me or John about it. 

Since then, he’d had quite a few more nightmares, not all of them about the Shredder. He’d largely stopped waking up screaming, but the bad dreams kept coming all the same. He was sitting on the far side of the couch now with his thumb in his mouth. He’d given up thumb sucking when he was about two-and-a-half, but after a nightmare, sometimes it was the only thing that held him together. Seeing him sitting there silently, thumb in his mouth, I was taken back in time half his life, to a time when he didn’t speak and when he still needed me to read his thoughts and provide everything for him. 

I shifted the photo album to one side, and still not directly acknowledging his presence, I held my right arm out to him. Byron scooted across the couch until he was next to me and I wrapped my arm around him. He was the least cuddly of my sons, but he was also the one I thought needed the most hugs. Despite him not generally volunteering for snuggles, he leaned against my side, thumb still working in his mouth. 

I kept flipping silently through the pages until I heard the thumb pop out of his mouth. I thought maybe he’d fallen asleep there beside me, but he was still wide-awake, watching the pages turn in his most serious fashion. “Mommy,” he said finally, breaking our silence, “Where does my name come from?” 

I stared at him for a moment. What had brought this up? “Mommy and Daddy picked it out before you were born,” I told him. I’ve always found the simplest response is the best way to start. 

“I know _that_ ,” he said testily. I looked at the clock. It was nearly three hours past his bed time; I let the crankiness slide. Byron leaned forward, pointing to a family portrait in my album. It was the last one taken before my father had had a massive coronary. He’d hung around in a coma for nearly six months before he died. I’d been sixteen. “Grampa Adam,” Byron said, calmer now. He moved his finger to the other side of the photo. “Uncle Jordan.” He removed the finger from the page and used the hand to rub his eyes. “Who am I named after?” 

John and I had named half of our kids after our loved ones. Two years after my father had died, my older brother had been killed in a car accident. I’d always told John I wanted our first born son to have my brother’s name. Mallory would have been named Jordan if she were a boy. So when we’d found out we were having identical triplets, we’d originally decided that, if they were boys, we’d name them after my brother and father and John’s grandfather: Jordan, Adam and Nicholas. 

I can’t explain why we changed our minds exactly. I think it was the fact that Nicholas was more syllables than the other two, and it cried out for a nickname, which the other two didn’t need. We’d set it aside and named the third baby Byron. 

I could easily have explained the source of their names to all my other kids. The other boys all knew who they were named after and could pick their namesakes out of old photo albums like Byron had done. They’d all also seen pictures of Cousin Margot—John’s cousin who had drowned when they were children. We’d named our Margo after her, of course. Mallory and Vanessa were names that—let’s be honest here—I’d heard on television shows and fallen in love with. And Claire was John’s favorite girl’s name of all time. Mallory had almost been named Mallory Claire before we’d decided not to use middle names. (We’d originally intended to have ten children and the thought of having to come up with twenty different names was just too overwhelming.) 

But how do you tell your five-year-old he’s named after the poet who helped Mommy fall in love with Daddy? Most kids that age don’t even get nursery rhymes, never mind Romantic poets. I didn’t answer him right away, but instead turned the page. He persisted. “Is there a picture of who I’m named after in here?” he asked again. 

I shook my head at him. “No, buddy,” I said slowly. “But I do have a book over here that has a picture of him.” Byron wiggled aside and let me up and I picked a volume of poetry off the shelf. It was something John had given me when he proposed. I sat back down and opened the book to one of the early pages. 

He wrinkled his nose as I showed him a picture of George Gordon, Lord Byron. “He’s old,” my son pointed out with a preschool sense of honesty…and bluntness. 

“Yes, and he died a long time ago. But he wrote some wonderful poems.” 

Byron took the book from me and flipped through it. “There are too many words in here,” he complained, “and not enough pictures.” 

I chuckled lightly. “That’s because it’s a book for adults,” I told him. Byron yawned loudly and handed me the book, which I set aside. “Come on, now, buddy,” I said. “Let’s get you back to bed.” 

He didn’t even protest at being carried up the stairs, which I did even though he was getting much too big for that. Somehow, I knew it would be the last chance I’d ever have to baby him in that way. Jordan and Adam would continue climbing into my lap for another couple of years, while I’d have to settle for squeezing Byron’s shoulder. 

On that night, however, we started a new tradition, something his brothers never knew anything about. He climbed into bed and I tucked him in and gave him a kiss on the forehead. I watched as his eyes closed and then popped back open. “I don’t want to go to sleep,” he mumbled, still afraid of whatever nightmare he’d had earlier in the night. 

I shushed him gently and sat down beside his lower bunk. Nicky was snoring softly in the other bottom bunk across the room, and I saw Adam shift in his sleep above him. Jordan slept silently without even the creak of a bedspring above Byron’s head. I stroked his hair and started reciting from memory in a whisper. “She walks in beauty, like the night/Of cloudless climes and starry skies…” 

He was asleep before I even finished the first stanza, but I continued reciting anyway. When I was finished, I left the boys’ room and closed the door behind me. Back in the living room, I put my photos away. 

John came home about an hour later to find me sitting with the volume of Byron in my lap. “What are you doing there?” he asked me curiously. 

I closed the book. “Reading a little bedtime story,” was all I told him.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sick in bed for the past couple days, so I went on what can only be called a writing tear. This is, quite honestly, one of my favorite things I've ever written in any context. I hope you like it as much as I do.
> 
> The lines of poetry are from "She walks in Beauty" by George Gordon (Lord Byron).


End file.
